The present invention relates to an I/O card device (hereinafter, referred to as an I/O memory card) conformed to the JEIDA/PCMCIA (Japan Electronic industry Development Association/Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) standards, and the method for operating the same. Particularly, the present invention relates to an operating method in which the function of the radio selective paging receiver system provided with the I/O memory card can be easily changed and to sharability of data between terminals and a radio selective paging receiver.
In the conventional radio selective paging receiver of that type as disclosed, for example, in JP-A-274710/1994, the function of the I/O memory card can be easily changed by upgrading the version of a communication protocol and improving malfunctions thereof.
FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional radio selective paging receiver circuit. In this device, the RAM 802 or ROM 1-803a is selected by the chip select (CS) 807 of the control means 804 and then operates the program via the control line 808.
In order to upgrade this system, the ROM1-803a must be replaced by the ROM 2-803b after the housing of the radio selective paging receiver is opened. Hence, upgrading the system requires a lot of trouble.
FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing another example of a conventional radio selective paging receiver. In normal use, the insertion plug 810a, as shown in FIG. 9A, is inserted into the system body 809. In this case, since the select setting signal 810 becomes a "Low" signal, the attribute switching circuit 812 is set to a normal attribute. Thus, the attribute switching circuit 812 is set to the memory card attribute No. 1 shown in FIG. 10.
In a system-upgrade case, when the insertion plug 810b, as shown in FIG. 9B, is inserted into the system body 809, the select setting signal 810 becomes a "High" level. Thus, the attribute switching circuit 812 is set to the memory card attribute No. 2 shown in FIG. 10.
In this case, in order to switch the select setting signal 810, it is needed to prepare two kinds of insertion plugs and to perform a specific electrical operation. Hence, the switching operation cannot be easily changed.
The first problem of the prior art is that the system upgrade requires a specific operation and a specific device to externally switch the attribute, so that easiness and portability are spoiled. The reason is that a specific device and a specific plug must be prepared and a specific operation must be mastered.
The second problem of the prior art is that the ROM inside the case cannot be easily replaced. The reason is that the portability is spoiled regardless of the portable specific body because the plug is externally inserted. Further, the problem is that the I/F forming the radio selective paging receiver function is not prepared to the portable terminal.